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While it's sadly likely that your communications have passed through an intelligence agency at some point, it's usually difficult to know just who got your data. However, you now have a rare opportunity to find out. Thanks to a ruling that the UK's GCHQ illegally spied on people using NSA databases, advocacy group Privacy International has posted a simple web form that lets you ask if you were caught in Britain's law-breaking dragnet -- and, as you might expect, petition against mass surveillance. This won't provide the most comprehensive results (you should use the official form if you're really worried), but it should still lead to GCHQ purging the relevant records if there's a match. The only big problem? The request is limited to the past data covered by the ruling, so there's no guarantee that you're truly off the radar.

It's no secret that numerous countries see hacking as a viable security strategy, but the British government has been reluctant to admit as much. Ask it about GCHQ's ability to mess with communications, for example, and it will only say that whatever it does is legal and necessary (even if it isn't). The nation's leaders just got a little more honest, however: the UK Home Office has published the guidelines that law enforcement and spies follow when using "equipment interference" (read: hacking) to get into phones and PCs. The rule set largely deals with high-level issues such as proportional uses of hacks, data retention and the validity of warrants, but it's a rare acknowledgment that these digital intrusions even take place. It goes so far as to mention that the UK intercepts and bugs gadgets it wants to spy on, much like its American counterparts. Minister James Brokenshire claims that the government is being "as open as it can be" about its security policies by publishing the documents, and this is certainly a milestone given earlier secretiveness.

British spies may be peeking into webcams and modifying internet traffic, but all that is above board -- if you ask the UK's Investigatory Powers Tribunal, anyway. Its judges have ruled that the Government Communications Headquarters' (GCHQ) intelligence gathering practices aren't violating the European Court of Human Rights' safeguards for free speech and privacy. The Tribunal agrees that unchecked mass data collection would be illegal, but contends that the ways GCHQ selects and preserves that data are reasonable. It doesn't have "carte blanche" to do what it likes, according to the ruling.

It was one of the final questions of the NSA's open Q&A today, and one that's weighed heavily on the minds of American citizens since the Prism scandal last year: "Are our fears of being discreetly spied on merited?" They aren't, according to NSA Civil Liberties and Privacy Director Rebecca Richards . "NSA is a foreign intelligence agency," she explained. "Our mission is to collect critical intelligence on foreign powers or their agents necessary to defend the country." The response is almost dismissive, but technically correct: the NSA isn't supposed to keep tabs on domestic threats, that's the FBI's job. That said, Richards did admit that some intelligence collection against US citizens is unavoidable. "For example, a foreign intelligence target may communicate with or about a U.S. Person," she explained. "NSA's minimization procedures have been designed to account for this possibility and other cases where NSA may incidentally acquire U.S. Person information."

Journalists in the US and UK may be relatively safe from the government's wrath when they report on surveillance leaks from the likes of Edward Snowden, but the Australian press may have to tread carefully before too long. Attorney General George Brandis has presented a bill that would make it a crime to reveal information that might "prejudice the effective conduct" of "special intelligence operations," such as those from the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO). It also creates new charges specific to people who might become whistleblowers, such as contractors and the spies themselves.

The US isn't done throwing the book at alleged Chinese industrial spies. The Department of Justice has charged a Chinese executive living in Canada, Su Bin, with stealing sensitive info for Boeing and Lockheed Martin warplanes like the C-17 cargo hauler and F-22 fighter. Reportedly, Su partnered with two people to hack into the aircraft makers' networks and either pass along or sell any secrets to interested parties in China. Unlike other targets of the DOJ's wrath, though, it appears that Su was more concerned about profit than helping any government intelligence efforts. While he was handing over data to state-owned aviation firms, he complained of "stingy" buyers and was willing to take a long time to hash out a deal -- not exactly the hallmarks of a government-backed spy.

It's no secret that the NSA's surveillance efforts reach far and wide. However, we now know which sort of people get caught in that dragnet -- and most of them, it turns out, are very ordinary. About 90 percent of users in a cache of Intercepted messages (leaked by Edward Snowden to the Washington Post) were innocents who either talked to suspects or simply happened to be in the wrong chat room at the wrong time. Some of the information is very personal, too, ranging from kids' school records to couples' love affairs.

The NSA isn't just interested in pure communications intelligence like call records; it wants to look for faces, too. Documents leaked by Edward Snowden reveal that the NSA has been using facial recognition software to scan the internet for portraits and match them with investigative data. The agency can determine whether or not a suspect spotted in a photo or video chat has a valid passport, for example, or find out if informants have said anything about that person. It can even spot subtle changes (like beards) and link photos to satellite info to pinpoint someone's whereabouts. As of 2011, the NSA was getting about 55,000 "facial recognition quality" images per day out of "millions" of candidates, according to the leaked material.

It's tempting to imagine that Edward Snowden obtained NSA data through a daring Mission Impossible-style raid, but it now appears that he didn't have to put in much effort. Intelligence officials speaking to the New York Times say that Snowden used a standard web crawler, a tool that typically indexes websites for search engines, to automatically collect the info he wanted. He only needed the right logins to bypass what internal defenses were in place. Since the NSA wasn't walling off content to prevent theft by insiders, the crawler could collect seemingly anything -- and Snowden's Hawaii bureau didn't have activity monitors that would have caught his bot in the act. Whether or not you believe the NSA's intelligence gathering policies justified a leak, it's clear that the agency was partly to blame for its own misfortune.

The National Security Agency might be busy collecting your Angry Birds high scores, but our previous notions that the government is collecting all of our phone data may be over-exaggerated, according to the Wall Street Journal. The publication reported this morning that in reality, the agency actually collects less than 20 percent of all call data. So what's going on? There appear to be a few factors that have formed a bit of a roadblock for the NSA's collection efforts: The rapid growth of phone use has made it hard for it to keep pace, and it's also struggled to find ways to remove location data (which is illegal to collect) from phone records; this information contradicts December reports that the NSA collects 5 billion phone location records per day.

Lastly, the NSA's orders to US operators don't cover a vast majority of the cellphone records available, and its collection efforts have also been slowed down due to demands on the agency to respond to criticisms from US courts. If these sources are to be believed, apparently the NSA's collection program isn't as widespread as we originally thought. Of course, this might be one reason why it's resorting to World of Warcraft to get information.

The NSA wields its legal authority to collect phone call data from American telecom providers, but the CIA apparently doesn't even need to apply pressure. The New York Timesclaims that the agency has a years-old voluntary agreement with AT&T that lets it obtain the call records of foreign suspects; the CIA pays $10 million per year in compensation. While the carrier reportedly hides identifying data for American participants, intelligence officers can demand that information as well if they get FBI subpoenas. Both AT&T and the CIA tell the Times that they're obeying the law, but that may not be very reassuring to those who want to keep their international calls private.

It's no secret that the United States and Israel have a very special relationship, but it might come as an unpleasant surprise that the NSA's intelligence-sharing agreement has so few strings attached. Today's edition of What-Has-the-NSA-Done-This-Time is brought to you by The Guardian, which revealed that the US government has handed over information intercepted through the agency's shady surveillance programs with no legally binding limits on how the data could be utilized. While we can't be sure of the exact nature of the raw intelligence shared with Israel, it's likely that the information contained phone calls and emails of American citizens. Considering that only yesterday, we learned that the NSA had violated its own privacy protections between 2006 and 2009, blaming confusion about how the system actually worked, today's development raises a few important questions about what information is being shared across borders and how exactly it's being used. For more information, check out The Guardian's report, linked below.

By now, it's no secret that the NSA has courted privacy violations, but new documents divulge just how long such incidents have occurred. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper released approximately 1,800 pages of declassified files, which reveal that the NSA's phone record program violations happened between 2006 (when it first came under court supervision) and 2009, when the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court ordered changes to the operation. During that period, a total of 17,835 phone numbers were listed for checking against Uncle Sam's database, and only about 1,800 were based on the standard of reasonable suspicion. According to Clapper, congress received the papers we're seeing now at the time of the incidents, and corrective measures have been put in place. Among the preventative actions are a complete "end-to-end" review of telephony metadata handling, the creation of the Director of Compliance position and a fourfold increase of the compliance department's personnel.

As it turns out, the missteps are (again) said to have been accidents. "There was nobody at the NSA who had a full understanding of how the program worked," an intelligence official claims. Sure, the increased transparency is certainly welcome, but a recently-leaked NSA audit from May of 2012 suggests that collection of protected data is still occurring from a combination of human error and technical limits. To pore through the National Security Agency's fresh load of documents, hit the second source link below.

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declassifiedDirectorOfNationalIntelligenceDNIintelligenceJamesClapperNSAPRISMspyingTue, 10 Sep 2013 18:56:00 -040021|20717437http://massively.joystiq.com/2013/08/05/not-so-massively-star-citizens-hangar-module-elites-black-ma/?utm_medium=feed&utm_source=Feed_Classic&utm_campaign=Massively&ncid=rss_semi
http://massively.joystiq.com/2013/08/05/not-so-massively-star-citizens-hangar-module-elites-black-ma/http://massively.joystiq.com/2013/08/05/not-so-massively-star-citizens-hangar-module-elites-black-ma/?utm_source=Feed_Classic&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Massively#commentsStar Citizen fired a shot across the bow of game publishers this week as it hit $15 million US in crowdfunding. The game's hangar module has now entered code lockdown and will soon be available to owners of every ship type except the cutlass. Elite: Dangerous teased players with details of trading and black markets in a massive new development newsletter, and revealed two new luxury passenger liner style ships.

Dota 2 kicked off its third annual world championship tournament, The International, with a record-breaking prize pool of $2.8 million and growing! League of Legends' smaller but still incredibly popular $100,000 EU LCS Summer Split tournament also got underway this week ahead of the colossal upcoming patch 3.10. The patch will include nerfs to champions Elise and Twisted Fate, and the removal of the popular Runic Bulwark item.

Diablo III's gold economy showed further signs of runaway inflation as developers increased the size of gold stacks on the real money auction house from 10 million for $0.25 to 50 million for the same price. Blizzard also asked players for feedback on the idea of adding a Diablo II style ladder system, and announced that it has big news about the game to be revealed in Gamescom later this month. And Path of Exile showed off its new Reave skill for Shadow characters ahead of upcoming patch 0.11.4.

Not surprisingly, the European Parliament isn't happy to hear that the NSA and other US agencies are allegedly snooping on communications in Europe and elsewhere. It isn't just complaining loudly, however -- the Parliament just voted 483-98 in favor of a resolution that will investigate US surveillance activities in Europe and report on their impact before the end of the year. The measure also asks EU officials to consider limiting the data they voluntarily provide to American authorities, such as shutting down programs that forward air passenger and bank records. There's nothing in the resolution that would immediately affect the EU-to-US communication pipeline, but that could change in half a year -- US intelligence outlets may not get their European information served on a silver platter for much longer.

The US Army's not-so-secret Long Endurance Multi-Intelligence Vehicle (LEMV) spy blimp is better at staying hidden than we thought... if unintentionally. Although it was due to fly the friendly skies of Lakehurst, New Jersey in mid-June, Northrop Grumman's usually unmanned surveillance was only just caught floating over the Jersey Shore as part of a maiden flight on August 8th. The conspicuous, delayed test run proved that the LEMV could take off, steer and land smoothly, and started a series of exercises that should culminate in combat trials over Afghanistan at the start of 2013. Northrop's KC Brown Jr. tells Wired that there's a possible (if purely coincidental) consolation for missing another deadline -- the airship could be used in a pinch for carrying as much as seven tons of supplies without getting into harm's way, albeit at a fairly glacial 30MPH. The successful first flight won't be much consolation to Mav6, whose Blue Devil 2 was scuttled at the last minute after technical issues; it's nonetheless a relief for US troops, who may get weeks at a time of constant intelligence on enemy movements. Catch a short snippet of the early LEMV journey after the break.

You might pride yourself on your poker face, but there would be no way to hide from a skull-probing EEG helmet being developed by Veritas Scientific. The device takes advantage of a well-known medical response called P300, which causes your brain's voltage to drop a split-second after you put a name to a face or object. Simply by showing you a slideshow of different images, interrogators could tell whether or not you recognize a particular individual -- or maybe that LTE-connected railgun hidden in your trunk. The company is pursuing military contracts and hopes to have a prototype ready in time for this year's war game exercises, but meanwhile you might want to start thinking of a way to install that tinfoil hatinside your skull.

According to a report filed by technology site CNET, the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is forming a new cyber intelligence and research unit dubbed the Domestic Communications Assistance Center (DCAC). The briefing states that the DCAC's purpose will be "to invent technology that will let police more readily eavesdrop on Internet and wireless communications" (initially focusing on VoIP services, social networks, and wireless communication mediums) . Via a prepared statement, the FBI explained that the unit's modus operandi will be to "assist federal, state and local law enforcement with electronic surveillance capabilities." Congress has appropriated over $54 million for "lawful electronic surveillance" in fiscal year 2012; the DCAC has been earmarked just north of $8 million from that pie. The Bureau's full statement is after the break.

It's been 15 years since IBM'sDeep Blue recorded its famous May 11th 1997 victory over world champion chess player Garry Kasparov -- a landmark in artificial intelligence. Designed by Big Blue as a way of understanding high-power parallel processing, the "brute force" system could examine 200 million chess positions every second, beating the grandmaster 3.5-2.5 after losing 4-2 the previous year. It went on to help develop drug treatments, analyze risk and aid data miners before being replaced with Blue Gene and, more recently, Watson -- which recorded a famous series of victories on Jeopardy! in 2011. If you'd like to know more, we've got a video with one of the computer's fathers: Dr. Murray Campbell and a comparison on how the three supercomputers stack up after the break.

As for Garry Kasparov? The loss didn't ruin his career, he went on to win every single Chess trophy conceived, retired, wrote some books and went into politics. As you do.

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15th Anniversary15thAnniversaryAIAnniversaryArtificial IntelligenceArtificialIntelligenceBirthdayChessChess ComputerChessComputerDeep BlueDeepBlueDr. Murray CampbellDr.MurrayCampbellGarry KasparovGarryKasparovIBMIntelligenceKasparovKasparov v Deep BlueKasparovVDeepBlueMurray CampbellMurrayCampbellTuringTuring TestTuringTestVictoryFri, 11 May 2012 13:24:00 -040021|20236271http://www.engadget.com/2011/12/02/brits-your-government-needs-you-to-solve-this-puzzle/?utm_medium=feed&utm_source=Feed_Classic&utm_campaign=Engadget&ncid=rss_semi
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Spare a thought for the British intelligence services. Every time they come up with a clever recruitment drive, their efforts are hampered by yet another off-putting death scene in a certain long-running spy drama. But relax, this particular ciphered job advert is entirely safe. It's been put out by the UK's monitoring service, GCHQ, which is altogether more 9 to 5 than MI5. You simply need to figure out the keyword buried in that daunting grid of characters, submit it via the 'canyoucrackit' link below, and a happy career in headphones and Herman Miller could be yours. On the other hand, people who claim to have beaten the puzzle seem underwhelmed by the response: all it got them, they say, was a shot at a £25k per year position that was already being openly advertised on the web. But, who knows, maybe those guys only think they cracked it?

What's this spy blimp doing next to an 18-wheeler? We're not entirely sure, but it's certainly not being subtle about it. This jumbo-sized floater, codenamed "Blue Devil Block 2," measures some 370 feet in length and comprises a whopping 1.4 million cubic feet. Originally inflated in September, the definitely-not-blue Blue Devil took flight for the first time last week in North Carolina and, if all goes to plan, should head to Afghanistan by the middle of next year. The Air Force says the blimp will hover above the country for five days at a time, collecting surveillance data from 20,000 feet above the ground and transmitting its findings to US intelligence officers on the ground, via laser. When that's taken care of, it'll be used to make the biggest omelette ever.

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18-wheelerafghanistanAfghanistan warAfghanistanWarair forceAirForceblimpBlue Devil Block 2BlueDevilBlock2eggenormousespionagegianthugeintelligencelasermilitaryminipostspyspy blimpSpyBlimpsubtletysurveillanceUS Air ForceUsAirForcewarwar on terrorwargadgetWarOnTerrorMon, 10 Oct 2011 19:10:00 -040021|20076913http://massively.joystiq.com/2011/09/04/eve-evolved-a-new-nullsec-for-everyone/?utm_medium=feed&utm_source=Feed_Classic&utm_campaign=Massively&ncid=rss_semi
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Several weeks ago, EVE Online developer CCP Greyscale published possibly the single most important devblog of the past two years. Titled Nullsec development: Design goals, the blog laid the ground rules for high-level discussion on EVE's upcoming nullsec revamp. For those who live in nullsec, territorial warfare and nullsec life represent the true endgame of EVE. It's in these massive lawless regions of space that players forge alliances, build their own empires, and lead massive fleets of ships into enemy territory to kick over some space sandcastles.

Over the past two weeks, I've been delving into the discussion surrounding the upcoming nullsec revamp and speculating on what changes we might see. I started with a look back at the early days of nullsec industry and went on to give some ideas aimed at reclaiming those glory days. I followed that up with last week's summary of EVE Online's empire-building history, the problems faced by today's territorial warfare mechanics, and further speculation on how the system could be radically changed for the better.

In this week's EVE Evolved, I conclude this series of articles on the upcoming nullsec revamp with an examination of the discussion surrounding PvE, the local channel, and the potentially revolutionary smallholding system that could give even casual and solo players a taste of nullsec.

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alliancecasualccpccp-eveccp-gamesccp-greyscaleeveeve-ccpeve-evolvedeve-mmorpgeve-onlineexplorationfeaturedfleetfleet-commandfleet-warfarefleetshomesteadintelintelligencelocalmissionmission-runningnullsecplayer-owned-starbasepvepvpsandboxscoutscoutingsmallholdingsmallholdingssolostarbasewarSun, 04 Sep 2011 18:00:00 -0400319|20034059http://www.engadget.com/2011/08/11/darpas-maple-leaf-remote-control-drone-takes-first-flight-vide/?utm_medium=feed&utm_source=Feed_Classic&utm_campaign=Engadget&ncid=rss_semi
http://www.engadget.com/2011/08/11/darpas-maple-leaf-remote-control-drone-takes-first-flight-vide/http://www.engadget.com/2011/08/11/darpas-maple-leaf-remote-control-drone-takes-first-flight-vide/?utm_source=Feed_Classic&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Engadget#commentsAfter five years behind locked doors, researchers at Lockheed Martin's Intelligent Robotics Laboratories in New Jersey have emerged with a working prototype of the "Samarai," a tiny DARPA-commissioned surveillance drone. The nano air vehicles (NAVs), modeled after falling Maple leaf seeds, are designed to be super light weight and agile for vertical lift off, hovering, and navigation in tight spaces. Like your favorite $5 Subway sammie, these surveillance bots are a foot long, but instead of being shoveled in your mouth, they're thrown like boomerangs into flight and controlled using a tablet app or a basic remote. These eyes in the sky will officially launch next week at the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International Conference, but until then you can check out the video of their first flight below.

Update: Lockheed Martin wrote in to let us know that although originally commissioned by DARPA, this project is currently funded internally. Lockheed also noted that the flight recorded in the video is only a test flight, rather than a first flight for the Samarai.

Hello, computer (and players)! In the Star Trek Online universe, fleets are the foundation that ensures ones' in-game (and even out-of-game) experience is one that is active, social, and fulfilling. Whether you enjoy PvP, Special Task Forces, role play, or a combo of all the above, there should be a fleet out there for you to call home. But, what do you do if you can not find one that suits your warp core? Well, you start your own! That's right! Gather your friends (or make new ones), visit the fleet contact on Earth Space Dock, think up a clever name, and click that "create" button.

Okay, okay -- I make it sound a lot easier than it actually is. Building a fleet takes a lot of work, time and dedication, but is possible with the right spirit at the helm. Then, just when you have it built, successfully running it becomes an even bigger challenge. During this week's Captain's Log, I am going to take you on a tour of duty as we explore a possible structuring to your future fleet. Based off of one of the most successful fleets in-game, Stonewall Fleet, which has had over 1,400 members sign-up for membership, let's take a look at the roles they have in place to make it all happen.

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admiraladmiraltyalliesambassaforcode of conductCodeOfConductcombatcounselorcraftingcrafting corpCraftingCorpcrypticcryptic-star-trekcryptic-studiosdata samplesDataSamplesenergy creditsEnergyCreditsfleet admiralfleet resourcesFleetAdmiralFleetResourcesfleetsHazard teamHazardTeamintelligenceinvitesKDFklingonlas vegasLasVegaslivestreamnewsletternicholas swinfordNicholasSwinfordnick swinfordNickSwinfordofficersPersonnelpvprecruitmentrostersocialst-onlineStar Trek Conventionstar-trek-mmostar-trek-onlineStarTrekConventionSTFstlvstostonewall fleetstonewall-fleetStonewallFleettrek-onlineThu, 04 Aug 2011 13:00:00 -0400319|20007831http://massively.joystiq.com/2011/07/22/wasteland-diaries-triumphant-return/?utm_medium=feed&utm_source=Feed_Classic&utm_campaign=Massively&ncid=rss_semi
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I remember way back when the Fallen Earth team released Deadfall there were many people didn't partake because they were waiting for Sector 4. And Deadfall was a pretty major update. It was practically a sector unto itself, with the level cap raised by four. As far as content goes, it wasn't far behind Alpha County in terms of scale.

Yet for some reason, many players were holding off on re-subbing until the elusive Sector 4 raised its mythical head. Hopefully those players are willing to wait another week or two. Sector 4 is finally here, but I don't feel it's quite ready yet. It's not S4 itself, it's a slew of other things which I'll cover that later.

The important thing is if you decide to head into Alpha, be prepared. You might be a little rusty after all of this time away from the wasteland and in need a refresher course in the finer points of not taking a Kaibab dirtnap. If that's the case, don't sweat it, we all are still working out kinks due to the new combat system. But even if you are stumbling back into the game in the most ungainly of fashions, an ounce of prevention is still much better than a pound of cure. There are a few things you can do to help yourself thrive in the new sector. After the cut, I'll give you some advice that may or may not help you along your way. I'm hoping on the former.